"No illness which can be treated by diet should be treated by any
other means."
(Moses Maimonides, 12th century physician)

The DOCTOR YOURSELF NEWSLETTER (Vol. 4, No. 6
February 20, 2004)
"Free of charge, free of advertising, and free of the A.M.A."

Written and copyright 2004 by Andrew Saul, PhD, of
http://www.doctoryourself.com , which welcomes nearly a million
visitors annually. Commercial use of the website or the contents of
this Newsletter is strictly prohibited.

HEALTH UN-SURANCE

Sure, health insurance should cover preventive and therapeutic
megadoses of vitamins. It doesn't. Now think this one over: Viagra
"is covered by most health plans," says its manufacturer, Pfizer
Inc., in its 2003 ad campaign. Of course Viagra, admits Pfizer,
may cause "heart attack, stroke, irregular heart beats, and death"
in some persons, even those without preexisting heart conditions.

Face that off with the fact that high-dose vitamin E and C
supplements prevent heart attack and stroke, and reduce
cardiovascular deaths by up to 50%.
(http://www.doctoryourself.com/forgotten.html)

And still, substantially any use of vitamins is not covered by most
"health" plans. I'll bet your own health "un-surance" won't even
cover a daily multiple vitamin. But it is much more likely to cover
Grandpa's access to a better sex life than to pay for vitamins for
his grandchildren.

As for the poor, Food Stamps cannot be used to buy vitamins,
either. Some skeptical people I've talked to think this is
tantamount to conspiracy. Whether or not that is the case does
not matter nearly as much as this does: Take charge of, and
responsibility for, your family's health. My mother always said,
"You can only spend your money in one place." Use it wisely:
invest in wellness. It is cheaper in the long run.

My children were raised all the way into college without even one
dose of any antibiotic. When we had insurance (which was rarely),
it did not help us at all. Our kids had their physicals at school, and
economically thus vetted, played outdoors, ate right, and, by golly,
took their vitamins. Insurance did not pay for any of the vitamins or
the good food that kept them well.

But as for erectile dysfunction, well now, just sign here!

COST OF KIDS' VITAMINS BUGGING YOU?

Oh, please. The average baby goes through between 6,000 and
7,000 diapers before completing toilet training. You might just as
well have a healthy baby as a dry baby.

Just raising one kid to age 18 can cost a quarter of a million
dollars, according to the US Department of Agriculture. (Lino M.
Expenditures on Children by Families, 2002. USDA Center for
Nutrition Policy and Promotion. Washington, DC, May 2003.
Miscellaneous Publication Number 1528-2002.
http://www.usda.gov/cnpp/Crc/crc2002.pdf ) Do it on a health
homesteader's budget, like I did, and it's still a hundred grand,
easy.

By any standard of comparison, you can afford supplements.
Adjusted for 2004 dollars, we personally spent about 25 cents a
day per child on preventive megadoses of vitamins. That's under a
hundred bucks a year per kid. When they were sick, up went the C
and out came the vegetable juicer. But, aside from physicals,
there were no doctor visits. (I mean NONE; my son and daughter
never even met their pediatricians.) No office call fees; no waiting-
room scream-a-thons; no co-pays; no medicines, prescription or
otherwise. Such savings certainly covered the cost of carrots and
extra vitamin C.

For more information on child's health, please do a search for
"children" from the search box near the top of the main page at
http://www.doctoryourself.com .

(Reader reminder: I do not endorse any supplement brand, and do
not provide recommendations as to which one you might want to
use. That is what Google searches and health food stores are for.)

NEW REVIEW OF "DOCTOR YOURSELF: Natural Healing that
Works" (http://www.doctoryourself.com/saulbooks.html):

Hugh D. Riordan, M.D., writes:

"What a superb book Doctor Yourself is for both the health
professions and anyone interested in maintaining a better level of
health. I applaud the work, especially its forthright manner of
presentation. It should be of enormous value to a vast number of
people."

My book "Doctor Yourself: Natural Healing that Works" is now
available through booksellers everywhere. If you'd like an
autographed copy, please go to
http://www.doctoryourself.com/order.html and I'll get out my
Sharpie and sign one for you.

Drink a lot of water and you will feel better immediately. Try it and
see. Headaches vanish; stuffiness clears up pronto; your
"plumbing" will like work a dream (less constipation; risk of kidney
stones drops to near zero); it will even help you lose a bit of
weight (especially in combination with vegetable juicing, further
below).

Do not take this as an excuse or an endorsement to spend money
on water products, with the possible exception of an inexpensive
device to clean up your drinking water if you live in an area where
tap water is a bit dicey.

Sipping from a cute little bottled-water container, while at least a
small step in the right direction, is not the same as drinking water
by the glassful. Unless there is a clear medical requirement that
you limit your fluids, then don't. Open the hatch and gulp it down!
It is remarkably difficult to over-hydrate yourself, but it is
amazingly easy to get dehydrated. Though everyone knows that
hot weather activity causes water loss, you need as much or more
to replace water lost in cold weather activity. It is not just
exercising (I'm for that, too) that causes water loss. Talking uses
water: classroom teachers need an extra liter or two a day just for
that. Airline travel dehydrates you, and there you just sit. In many
ways, the old-time hydropathists were right: Water can be good for
what ails you. Certainly the value is great, the safety high, and the
price is right.

LOWERING CHIOLESTEROL AND TRIGLYCERIDES

Sean writes:

"I was having a very difficult time with cholesterol and
triglycerides. My triglycerides were over 700 and cholesterol was
256. About two months ago, in one of your newsletters, you
suggested that if we eat meat and fried foods, that we should be
taking lecithin. I went on a regimen of powdered lecithin, and in
two months, my cholesterol was reduced to 180 and triglycerides
were reduced from over 700 to 350. Then, I started taking 1,500
mg of niacin for the triglycerides and raised it to 3,000 mg/day.

"I suspected that my future lipid tests would continue to show
dramatic improvement, and they did. Three months later,
cholesterol: 149; triglycerides: 250.

"I am 62 years old, and the doctor said that he was jealous of my
blood pressure and cholesterol count. Thank you!"

Most kind of you to write. Your letter will be a great
encouragement to many. Thanks are rightly due to Dr. Jacobus
Rinse, who turned me on to lecithin decades ago. (For more
information on lecithin and Dr. Rinse's therapy, please do a search
for "lecithin" from the search box near the top of the main page at
http://www.doctoryourself.com .)

MULTIPLE CHEMICAL SENSITIVITY
I am preparing an article on multiple chemical sensitivity. I'd be
interested in knowing what has helped you (and also what hasn't)
if you have MCS. No product endorsements, please. If you want to
share your story, please email doctoryourself.com/contact.html .

DEPRESSION
R. T. writes:

"I have struggled with chronic depression and anxiety for years. I
read your website articles about vitamin B-3 (niacin) and
schizophrenia, and the other info about B vitamins and how
important they are. So, I thought I would give the idea a shot and
went and purchased a powerful B-complex supplement. It worked!
I notice a magnificent improvement just over the past few months.
Previously, I was taking Zoloft. But the B-complex has done much
more than the Zoloft did. Amazing how mankind tries to
complicate things when it is actually very simple. I am amazed!"

Good for you. For even better results, you can take your B-
complex vitamin, divide the dose, and take it all throughout the
day, say with each meal. I'd be sure to add vitamin C as well.

WEIGHT LOSS

"Does taking vitamins make you fat?"

No, taking vitamins makes you healthy. Obtaining vitamins goes
with eating right. Underweight people who eat right and take
vitamins will gain weight; heavy people who eat right and take
vitamins will lose weight. Not overnight, but given time. Look for a
3 to five pound loss per month. That is the kind of gradual but
sustainable weight loss you want to see.

Vitamin pills contain no calories. The foods most people eat
contain calories and no vitamins. I think a lot of people overeat
because their bodies are understandably craving vitamins and
also craving the good part of fats, their essential fatty acids
(linolenic and linoleic acids). You can meet both cravings without
blimping out.

Here's how:

Eat a tablespoon of lecithin (granulated, stirred into in milk or
juice) about half an hour before every meal. Lecithin in quantity is
a very good diet aid: it kills your appetite while giving your body
those two essential fatty acids (above) it is really looking for.

Also, take a good multiple vitamin pill twice daily. Most people's
regular mega-calorie fare is already vitamin-poor. For most
people, dieting just makes bad food-based vitamin intakes even
worse.

WEIGHT LOSS AND APPETITE

"Thank you honestly for all the valuable information you presented
on your website regarding weight loss and, most importantly, how
to keep it off through simple rules for changing life style, not just
an item or two of diet.

"One of the most fruitful solutions you presented to lose weight
was to juice fast. I tried fasting before and it was easy after day 2
or 3. I'm thinking of juice fasting again, but those first two hungry
days are amazingly hard as much as the days that follow them are
amazingly great. Do you have advice to share on this?"

Sure do. The first thing to remember is that fasting is a choice;
starving is a sentence. We instinctively fear hunger, and with
reason. I've gone hungry a few times in my life and there is
nothing ennobling about it. Let's start by banishing the fear: You'll
be fine.

That brings us to appetite, the real problem. Like dogs and
teenagers, we are always hungry. But for what? If you have a
hankering for salty, sugary, greasy "foods," then I say you are not
really hungry. Appetite is partly physiological but largely learned.
While the normal human body can go days or even weeks without
food, your appetite is not about to let you without putting up a
fight.

Appetite is linked to low blood sugar, a desire to chew, and an
empty stomach.

We can fix them all.

First, the blood sugar. Water-only fasting tends to crash your
blood sugar and fruit-juice-only fasting tends to make it (and you)
hyper. Vegetable juice is in smack in the middle, containing a
natural mix of some but not too many complex and simple
carbohydrates. If you are pooped out, drink more juice. For a
picker-upper, have some fruit juice after you FIRST have two
glasses of plain water. If you are buzzing and putting a new
addition on the house at 3 AM, try drinking more plain water.
Otherwise, drink fresh made vegetable juices. Low-salt V-8 is
good for taking to work and travelling.

Now for the chewing part: Simply snack on raw vegetables, any
kind, any time, day or night. Chew them very, very well. Is this
cheating? How can it be, if you were going to put those same
vegetables through the juicer anyway? Relax! This is about good
health, not distracting technicalities and legalities. I won't call the
Food Police if you won't, OK? If you need to, then munch. Just
munch on the right things. (More on this further below.)

As far as having an empty stomach goes, well, don't. If you have
an empty stomach you are doing it all wrong. When you are
hungry, drink juice. No limit. All you want; any kind, any amount;
any time. There is absolutely no need to have an empty stomach.
Juice it up!

In summary: If you can eat it raw, you can juice it. If you can juice
it, you can eat it raw. If you are hungry, immediately do one or the
other.

Now here is the part you've REALLY been waiting for:

EAT AND GROW THINNER

"Oh, yeah, like I haven't heard that one before!" you say.

Let me let you in on a secret. The real trick to successful dieting
truly is to never be hungry. If you are hungry or otherwise
uncomfortable, you are doing it wrong. Plenty of people
needlessly suffer when they diet. I think most dieters are either
down and dehydrated, crazy carnivores, or angry martyrs.

Diet Mistake Number One: DOWN AND DEHYDRATED

1) Don't dry up and wither away: Drink lots of water, as we've
discussed above. And the colder the better.
(http://www.doctoryourself.com/dieting.html) It will cut your appetite. It
will relieve most headaches. It will help fill your tummy with zero
calories. And it costs nothing.

And while you have that water glass in your hand, take some
vitamin C with it.

One big reason people eat is to improve their mood. Vitamin
C, a natural antidepressant, also helps improve mood. High
doses of vitamin C promote the formation of epinephrine, or
adrenaline. In fact, the human body's primary reserves of
vitamin C are found in the adrenal glands, and vitamin C is a
specific treatment for adrenal exhaustion. You take more C
and you feel peppier. Sounds trite, but just you try it.

Take substantial vitamin C doses regularly throughout the
day and see how well it works as an appetite suppressant. I
am not making this up. Researchers of the Department of
Psychiatry, Duke University Medical Center, found that, in
persons "using an ascorbic acid aerosol as a sensory
substitute" for tobacco, "hunger for food was significantly
lower." (Levin ED, Behm F, Carnahan E, LeClair R, Shipley
R, Rose JE. Clinical trials using ascorbic acid aerosol to aid
smoking cessation. Drug Alcohol Depend. 1993
Oct;33(3):211-23.) How to make your own vitamin C spray
has been discussed in previous Newsletters, and a search for
"vitamin C spray" from the search box near the top of the main
page at http://www.doctoryourself.com will find it for you.)

Diet Mistake Number 2: CRAZY CARNIVORISM

2) Most meats contain a big slug of fat. Even lean meat is made
up of 10% to 20% fat, and has no fiber. Yes, yes: you need
protein. But you do not necessarily need to kill a critter to get
protein in your diet. Eat nuts instead.

Yes, nuts. You will hear people say the opposite, but the truth is
that nuts are very good diet foods. They are satisfying, crunchy,
high in magnesium, and have excellent mouth feel. Nuts are
incredibly filling if you eat them slowly and chew them up well. Buy
the good ones at the health food store: nothing stale, no salt, no
oil, no tooth-rotting so-called "honey roasting." Eating nuts will
help you have the willpower to leave the meats and many another
"fat-food" alone. Nuts are high in the amino acid tryptophan, which
your body makes into mood-elevating serotonin. For people who
"eat for the wrong reasons," who eat out of loneliness,
despondency or despair, nuts are a perfect answer. Peanuts and
cashews are especially rich in tryptophan.
(http://www.doctoryourself.com/prozac.html)

Diet Mistake Number 3: ANGRY MARTYRDOM

3) It's not what you eat but what you eat a lot of that matters in the
end, such as a pants-stretching rear end. Tasteless diet joke.
Sorry. But don't have a tasteless diet! Look, here's the plan: eat all
the salads you want and eat all the fruit you want, and I mean ALL
you want. Raw-food vegetarians eat themselves slim. Want to
cook the vegetables? Go ahead, although it seems like a lot of
extra work to me. Cooking does not increase the calories in a
food, but it does compact the food such that you eat more of it. A
really big bowl of greens will cook down into a very small portion.
Still, it's better for you than the meat-mad, fat-frenzied, carbo-
crazy way most people eat. Raw vegetarian foods are fat-free, low
cal and delicious, and you can eat until you are FULL at every
meal. Now that's a diet plan!
(http://www.doctoryourself.com/weight_loss.html)

If you do not want to go for the "full monty" of a raw food
vegetarian diet, that just do a regular no-junk-food, meatless diet
and load up on foods that really do need cooking: the legumes.
Peas, beans and lentils are high in fiber, cheap and filling. They
are also high in the dieter's friend, tryptophan, the feel-good amino
acid mentioned above.

Be sure to eat your squash, too. People who complain that
vegetarian eating does not satisfy their hunger are doing it wrong.
Follow the ways of the native Americans and always invite all of
the Three Sisters to your dinner table: grain, legumes and squash.
If you eat a lot of just one or two parts of this triad, you will likely
still have the after-dinner munchies. When you have roughly equal
servings of grain, beans, and squash at each meal, you prepare
yourself for entry into a whole different between-meal world: a
world in which you are happy and the cravings are gone.

If you do not agree with this, it is because you have not tried it yet.
Why not? What have you got to lose?

READERS SAY
Patricia, aged 93, writes:

"Back in 1970 my hubby had the killer kind of heart attack. He was
alive but a sick man with serious heart troubles a year later. We
learned about the Drs. Shute's therapy with vitamin E. Dr. Wilfrid
Shute called Coumadin "poison," took him off it, and within weeks
(it seemed) had him heart healthy. My husband took only our
current vitamins, plus he'd worked up to 1,600 IU's of vitamin E.
This took him to age 90 without health problems."

Way to go! A search for "Shute" or for "Vitamin E" at
http://www.doctoryourself.com will give you much more to read
about this approach.

WHY FDA MEANS "FOOLISH DRUG ADVOCATES"
The U.S. Senate, the U. S. House of Representatives and the
FDA (in close cooperation with the international pharmaceutical
cartel) are attempting to restrict vitamin potency with a "dosage
must be restricted to insure safety" argument. Consider this:
tincture of iodine, a deadly poison, is sold over the counter without
even being in a child-resistant bottle. There is a screw loose here
somewhere, and it may be more than just the iodine bottle cap.
Previous recent issues of this Newsletter discussing this problem
are posted at http://www.doctoryourself.com/backissues.html .
Look for the latest ones in Volume 4. The search engine on my
main page will save you time: just type in "CODEX" or
"supplement restriction."

You can find VACCINATION EXEMPTION LAW, STATE BY
STATE, at http://www.access1.net/via/STATES/allstates.htm ,
which says "All States have a Medical Exemption. In addition, all
States have a Religious Exemption except Mississippi and West
Virginia." Interesting, that, since the First Amendment of the U. S.
Constitution applies (or should apply) in EVERY state, don't you
think?

For more information on vaccination alternatives and how to do
them, please search the http://www.doctoryourself.com website
with the keyword "vaccination." There are many excellent anti-
vaccination websites to be found on my "Links" page.

YOUR FEEDBACK WANTED
Have you ever been denied a natural therapy by a doctor or
hospital? Tell your story! Email your experience to me at
doctoryourself.com/contact.html

WEBSITE RESOURCE
Does your state have laws protecting your right to demand natural
health care? Does it protect your doctor from persecution if he or
she provides drugless care to you? All this and more will be found
at
http://www.healthlobby.com/statelaw.html .

WHEN I WAS AN "IN-BETWEEN-AGER"
I was just minding my own business one day when my father said
this to me, without a preface of any kind: "As of today, I've been
married longer than I've been single. Remember that." I have. I
have also learned that a relationship is one of the few things that
takes two people to make it work, but only one person to wreck it.
Certainly your total health care requires a consideration of the
health of your relationships. I am pleased to present some wise
words by SUNY Professor Emeritus John I. Mosher, Ph.D. Four
of Dr. Mosher's practical, down-to-earth articles are posted at
http://www.doctoryourself.com/relationship.html
http://www.doctoryourself.com/mosher2.html
http://www.doctoryourself.com/mosher_neuro.html
http://www.doctoryourself.com/mosher3.html

STOP TOBACCO DEATHS
Tobacco is the number one cause of preventable death. Lung
cancer kills far more women than breast cancer. Tobacco smoke
contains hundreds of toxic chemicals. For more information on
putting an end to smoking, you can look at the website of one of
my favorite, all-volunteer organizations:
http://www.SmokefreeAir.org .

POPULARITY CONTEST
According to http://www.ranking.com ,
http://www.doctoryourself.com is now approximately the 109,000th
most visited website on earth. That's not of just health websites;
that's of all websites.

The word is getting out, and you are the reason. Keep reading!

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have no financial connection with the supplement industry. We do
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AN IMPORTANT NOTE: This newsletter is not in any way offered
as prescription, diagnosis nor treatment for any disease, illness,
infirmity or physical condition. Any form of self-treatment or
alternative health program necessarily must involve an individual's
acceptance of some risk, and no one should assume otherwise.
Persons needing medical care should obtain it from a physician.
Consult your doctor before making any health decision.

Copyright c 2004 and prior years Andrew W. Saul
doctoryourself.com/contact.html . Permission to reproduce single
copies of this newsletter FOR NON-COMMERCIAL, PERSONAL
USE ONLY is hereby granted providing no alteration of content is
made and authorship credit is given.

AN IMPORTANT NOTE: This page is not in any way offered as prescription, diagnosis nor treatment for any disease, illness, infirmity or physical condition. Any form of self-treatment or alternative health program necessarily must involve an individual's acceptance of some risk, and no one should assume otherwise. Persons needing medical care should obtain it from a physician. Consult your doctor before making any health decision.

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